AKQA Careers

At AKQA we believe in the imaginative application of art and science to create beautiful ideas, products and services. With an entrepreneurial and collaborative approach, we design adaptive digital services and applications that capture the imagination, delivering impressive ... Read more

Mission: The future inspires us. We work to inspire.

Company Updates

The iconic boutique hotelier and New York Times bestselling author, Chip Conley, helped Airbnb’s founders turn their fast-growing tech start-up into a global hospitality brand by becoming a mentor and an intern at the age of 52.. He shares his own story of growth and transformation in his 50s with AKQA Chief People Officer, Amy Oliver. They discuss how we can re-think our mindset and re-define the second half of our lives.

—5 days ago

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Blockdown Simulator is a free Minecraft map where players can learn about social distancing, through a zombie pandemic. In the custom-built map, players simulate a zombie outbreak in a medieval village, before applying social distancing measures in generated houses. The map contains an underground hospital with intensive care units where players can play doctors to heal infected villagers using the right potions and apples. The simple, playable model demonstrates how various social measures can mitigate a pandemic and its resultant effects on healthcare services.

AKQA – Why Work With Us?

The future inspires us. We work to inspire.

Within every brief is the desire to create notable work of distinction. And within every idea is the determination to shape a better future. AKQA’s influential work is recognised worldwide for its pioneering approach, continuing to define and lead the industry.

AKQA, the home of courageous invention, architects, and designs. Delivering iconic experiences, services, products and ecosystems that sustainably improve people’s lives. Distinguished by exceptional professional judgement, diversity of experience across categories and a proven track record, our high-calibre team creates groundbreaking work across multiple industries.

Combining art, science and the humanities is the opportunity to explore bold, imaginative work influenced by all the disciplines in a pursuit to introduce a new dimension, break boundaries, and create work at the forefront.

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CREATE WHAT'S NEXT

AKQA has an unmatched reputation for revolutionary work. Since our founding we have consistently been among the world’s most influential and awarded agencies.

Our record of achievement results from our team's collaboration with clients. Many of the world’s most prestigious clients entrust AKQA with their ideas and innovation work.

This opportunity coupled with exposure to work that is at the cutting edge - in an environment that champions creativity and thought leadership - makes for a career enriched with learning and achievement.

Working at AKQA

Innovation – pioneering ideas combined with the application of technology, to achieve lasting improvements in performance for our clients

Service – outstanding service to our clients and colleagues, so we retain exceptional people and create trust-based relationships

Quality – adhere to the highest professional standards and superior quality

Thought – recommending the best solutions through the most rigorous thinking process

What we look for

Passion, conscientiousness, adaptability, loyalty and integrity are all integral qualities that we look for.

Often, when companies talk about growth, they are talking about size. But our focus is growth of excellence across everything we do.

Sometimes, when creating a labour of love, we all put in long hours and sometimes we can all feel burdened by deadlines; but the exhilaration will hopefully always outweigh the exhaustion. We create something, so there is satisfaction. We do it as a team, so there is friendship and we do something useful and inspiring, so there is a sense of purpose.

In turn, we offer a competitive salary, a variety of benefits, a respectful and meritocratic working environment with limitless opportunities for personal and professional development.

AKQA provides the highest quality ideas and innovation services to clients around the world. Our consistent track-record of results achieved for clients have set our firm apart. Through our focus on our core values, thought-leadership, rigorous delivery, and industry initiatives, AKQA is today one of the world’s most influential companies. Our goal is to become a high-performance environment where the most talented people flourish. With our perfectionist approach, people join AKQA for the opportunity to do the best work of their careers.

We create digital products, services and immersive experiences that are useful, usable, delightful and enjoyed by millions. We employ a rapid ideation and prototyping process that focuses on getting pilots into market quickly, helping clients make a sustained impact, increase their relevance and expand their connection. By embracing a pioneering approach that continues to lead and define the industry, we deliver cohesive blueprints that fulfil audience needs and surpass business goals.

LONG-TERM COMMITMENT

AKQA is committed to helping our team develop into the best possible practitioners and to providing them with an unparalleled foundation for their career. We help well-rounded professionals to acquire leadership skills more quickly than at other organisations. Our employees benefit from the trusted long-term nature of our client relationships as well as the cultural alignment between the client and our own organisation, creating an optimum environment to deliver the work without any compromises.

ORGANISED TO SUCCEEDThe core motivation and primary goal at AKQA is product excellence. Although we are part of WPP, AKQA operates independently. Organically grown, our team works as a single firm, without geographic division. This means we can bring resources from across our network to provide solutions for our clients. Over 70% of our clients work with our team in multiple regions.

In addition to our own Future Lions initiative, we have formed partnerships with many of the world’s leading universities so we can hire their best graduates. We combine youth and energy with maturity and experience to form a community that has a unique diversity of knowledge and exceptional professional judgement.

DEVELOPMENT

AKQA offers a menu of training through the AKQA Academy and WPP Professional Development. This comprehensive curriculum of formal training is designed to equip our team with the substantive creative, engineering, business acumen, communications, management and analytical skills required to have professionally rewarding careers. AKQA Academy and WPP Professional Development courses are taught by leaders in their fields including AKQA’s own senior team and respected external experts.

To maintain the continuous focus on our core values, and provide a clear career path for our team, all of our Managing Directors and Managing Partners are promoted from within AKQA.

All AKQA employees and clients are invited to participate in the AKQA Insight and AKQA Tech.Insight thought leadership programmes. These comprise a series of informative lectures and Q&A sessions with authors, artists, athletes, scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs who are recognised leaders in their respective disciplines.

DIVERSITY

We believe that diversity is vital to AKQA’s ability to provide our clients with the best recommendations and are committed to fostering a varied and inclusive work environment. We provide our employees with the canvas, tools and confidence to help them advance their careers in a way that best suits them.

SUSTAINABILITY

At AKQA we believe everything a company does should be about taking the responsibility to be respectful towards the community and the environment. We consider community and pro-bono work to be an important commitment of our employees. We encourage our team to devote their skills to a broad range of community activities, working with a myriad of charitable and not-for-profit organisations. AKQA is part of WPP’s Sustainability initiatives. WPP is ranked no. 49 in an annual round-up of the World’s Greenest Companies.

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http://www.akqa.com/careers

Innovators, Entrepreneurs, Storytellers.

AKQA is always looking for passionate people who share a commitment to our founding values of Innovation, Service, Quality and Thought.

We have earned numerous international accolades, including Agency of the Year a record 31 times. At the end of 2011, AKQA was named Agency of the Year on both sides of the Atlantic by Adweek and Campaign magazines.

We bring ideas and innovation to forward-thinking companies such as Anheuser-Busch, Audi, Delta, Google, Nike, Target, Verizon, and Xbox. AKQA is home to more than 1,400 employees around the world, with offices in Amsterdam, Atlanta, Berlin, London, New York, Paris, Portland, San Francisco, Shanghai, Tokyo and Washington, D.C.

Difficulty 128 Ratings

Difficulty

Interviewing at AKQA

I applied online. The process took 3+ months. I interviewed at AKQA in April 2020.

Interview

I was "ghosted" by AKQA!

I never in a million years would have imagined an agency as reputable as AKQA would ghost their job candidates. This is particularly egregious right now with the pandemic as job opportunities are so limited. You would think AKQA would have some empathy for candidates they bring into an interview process right now.

I applied for the Strategy Director opportunity in the Washington, DC office. I currently reside on the West Coast, but my wife accepted a job transfer to DC so I am looking for opportunities in that region. I was excited to see AKQA had an open position in the DC office as I am coming from a similar role at an agency in Portland, and the role is supporting an entertainment client which is also in my background as head of marketing strategy at one of the big-6 studios. Another factor that makes this disappointing is that I do know who the client this position will be supporting is, and it is a division of my former employer. The president of that division is a colleague I have known for almost 20 years and I keep in touch with.

I applied for the job back in February and did not hear anything for two months. I assumed it was a lost opportunity, particularly after the pandemic started and we all went into self-quarantine. I was ecstatic when a recruiter reached out to schedule an interview, given all that is going on and because our relocation to DC is still proceeding as planned. After responding to the recruiter with my availability for a phone interview, and keeping my schedule clear, I never heard back. I followed up with the recruiter several times for about a month, but there has been no response. I now realize I was "ghosted" and will not hear anything. I understand a lot is changing quickly, but all the recruiter had to do was let me know the position was on hold or canceled or had been filled... anything but ghosting me.

When my family and I get to DC in about six weeks, I will be reaching out to my former colleague to catch-up and I am certainly going to let her know how this experience with AKQA went.

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